ABSTRACT
The Pacifica, California, radio station aired a speech by comedian George Carlin called "Filthy Words," a piece of social satire that addressed the seven words that can never be said on the airwaves. The father of a young boy heard the broadcast with his son and wrote to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to complain. The FCC defined the speech as "patently offensive" and put a comment in the Pacifica Foundation's file, noting that the complaint would be taken into consideration when the radio station's license was up for renewal. Under the First Amendment, the mere categorization of speech as offensive does not automatically permit the government to limit it. Although in this case the US Supreme Court permitted the government to limit speech on public airwaves, such limitations are not necessarily permitted in other forms of media, such as the Internet.
